


written on our empty graves

by tokiwas



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Post-Canon, Gen, The lovely bones au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-28
Updated: 2018-03-28
Packaged: 2019-04-13 23:07:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14122827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tokiwas/pseuds/tokiwas
Summary: Originally posted in the Pacific Rim Kink Meme way back in 2013.Prompt:"Nonnies, punch me in the gut. I need some Chuck is actually dead feels.Chuck's mum greets him in the afterlife.Maybe a sort of Lovely Bones type scenario, where they still watch over the living? Or whatever you want. Just hit me in the feels."





	written on our empty graves

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from "Self-Portrait" by Buddy Wakefield.

Chuck runs.  
  
He doesn’t know where he’s going. Doesn’t know why he’s running. Doesn’t even know he ended up here.   
  
All he knows is that he’s running, and he just keeps going.  
  
He’s in a field, loose grass sticking to his boots as he runs. The weather is grim and grey, dark clouds blocking out the blue sky, strong winds blowing, but Chuck’s not scared.   
  
There’s an anticipation building up in his chest, a scream and a sob clogged up at the back of his throat, and he doesn’t know why.   
  
When he sees a figure waiting for him at the end of the field, he realises who the person is, realises how he ended up here, realises where he is.  
  
The figure calls his name, and Chuck can’t help but laugh, a sob released in the form of mirth, and he runs faster.  
  
**  
  
(Chuck Hansen died with his father’s words on his tongue and his finger on a switch.  
  
Chuck Hansen runs into his mother’s arms, and he’s home.)  
  
**  
  
Angela looks exactly the same as she did the day she died.  
  
The gentle smile on her face never wavers as Chuck runs straight into her arms, crying and crying, and she holds him tight, presses a kiss to his forehead, whispers  _I’m so proud of you baby you were so brave_  into his ears as he sobs into her shoulder.   
  
They pull apart after what seems like a long time, Angela still smiling, Chuck’s crying ceased.  
  
She slips her arm around his waist, and walks him down the field.  
  
**  
  
“I piloted Jaegers, mum. I became a soldier like dad.”  
  
Chuck rests his head against his mum’s as they walk side by side, her arm still wrapped around his waist.  
  
Angela laughs, and kisses his temple.  
  
“I know. I watched you.”  
  
They still have quite a distance to go.  
  
**  
  
‘Home’ just looks like the Shatterdome, people who look like they’re there but at the same time not there running around, giving orders or following orders. The sound of choppers fill the air, and above their heads helicopters send in Striker Eureka. Chuck is confused.  
  
“Why are we at a Shatterdome?” he asks.  
  
Angela smiles.  
  
“This is your heaven," she says. "These are what your dreams on Earth look like.”  
  
Chuck realises how he had only ever wanted to be a Jaeger Pilot, and had only ever been a Jaeger Pilot. The only dream he had other than that was to see his mum again, and now she’s right next to him.  
  
Apart from that, he’s never had any dreams on Earth.  
  
**  
  
“So everyone has a heaven?”  
  
Chuck sits at the bottom bunk of his quarters with his mum. Everything looks exactly the same. The only difference is that Chuck never took the bottom bunk when he was alive. That one had always been dad’s.  
  
“Yes.” Angela’s fingers trace the pictures on the wall, mapping out memories that she never got to share with her husband, her son. A nostalgic smile drifts across her face, as if she was right there with them when those pictures were taken.   
  
“What does yours look like?” Chuck asks her.  
  
Angela thinks for a while before she answers. “It used to be just like the house we used to live in,” she finally says.  
  
“Can I live in your heaven?” Chuck immediately asks.  
  
“Whatever you want. It’s your heaven, after all.”  
  
Her fingers leave the wall, and they tangle together with Chuck’s own.  
  
**  
  
The road outside the Shatterdome changes, from a straight path to one with many other roads leading out to places unknown.  
  
“Where do they go?” Chuck asks.  
  
“Let’s find out,” Angela replies.  
  
They walk one of the paths, and it leads to the house they used to live in when Chuck was a kid, before Scissure came and destroyed everything.  
  
“Am I in your heaven?” The question is genuine.  
  
“Not exactly, but we share the same dream.”  
  
Chuck thinks that’s enough.  
  
**  
  
They walk the rest of the paths together. Chuck finds dreams he had long forgotten, simple desires he had back when he was alive on every path. Fighter jets in the sky. Jaegers from different generations, stomping through the seas. Large football fields, some occupied with people playing football, some empty. A motorbike show. Dogs running past his feet, in all shapes and sizes.   
  
But ultimately, his mum is right next to him, and that’s heaven enough for him.  
  
**  
  
Chuck finds other people in his heaven, people he knew when he was alive.  
  
Most of them are Jaeger Pilots. He sees Stacker Pentecost when he passes the Marshall’s office, he sees the Wei Tang Triplets playing basketball, he hears the loud thumping of Ukrainian Hardhouse, the Kaidanovskys’ trademark background music. One time Chuck saw Yancy Becket lazing on top of his Jaeger. But it was never all the time. Some days they were there, some days they weren’t.  
  
“Sometimes their heaven fits in with your own,” Angela explains, when he asks her. “Sometimes they don’t. When they don’t fit in with yours, that’s when you can’t see them.”  
  
Chuck panics. “Will you be gone if your heaven doesn’t fit in with mine?”  
  
“No,” she tells him, promises him. “I’ll always be in your heaven, and you’ll always be in mine.”  
  
**  
  
“Can we watch the living?” Chuck asks one day.  
  
There’s a strange sort of sadness in Angela’s expression.  
  
“We don’t make a difference,” she says softly. “It’s better if we leave them alone.”  
  
“I want to see Max,” Chuck says stubbornly. “I need to know if the old man’s feeding him well.”  
  
Angela takes his hand.  
  
“Okay,” she says.  
  
**  
  
Herc’s all alone in a small room, watching TV with Max. He’s got a wistful smile on his face, and his fingers scratch Max’s ears mechanically.  
  
A huge grin spreads across Chuck’s face at what Herc’s watching. It’s am old football game - a classic, Herc had once told a seven-year-old Chuck. The most historic football game for their team. Chuck had never forgotten that game, even when he grew older, grew apart from his dad. It would always be the best game he had ever watched in his life.  
  
“Look mum,” he says, unable to keep the smile off his face. He doesn’t know why he’s so happy to see his dad watching their favourite game, to see his dad smile, even if it’s only been one week after he died. “Dad’s doing okay.”  
  
Angela smiles that strange sad smile again. “He’s still grieving, Chuck,” she tells him. “He may look like nothing’s happened, but he’s sad on the inside. We should give him time.”  
  
But Chuck shakes his head, laughs. “You’re wrong, mum. I’ve been in his head, I know him. He’s doing good. Don’t need to worry ‘bout him. He’s doing okay.”  
  
Angela just pats his hand.  
  
They watch the football match together, Angela quiet, Chuck whooping every time his team scores, Herc murmuring the commentary he knows by heart. It almost feels like they’re all back together, a whole family again.  
  
“What a game,” both Herc and Chuck echo the commentator when the final whistle blows, Chuck in the same excited tone as the commentator, Herc’s voice low and filled with nostalgia. “What a game.”  
  
Chuck only realises the tears on his face when he returns to his heaven.  
  
**  
  
Chuck watches the living despite Angela’s warnings.  
  
She doesn’t stop him. She just says that sometimes it may be a little too much for him to take. “It was hard watching the both of you sometimes,” she tells him. “It’s hard to watch the ones you love be in so much pain when you can’t do anything about it.”  
  
“This is different,” Chuck argues. “Dad’s doing okay. I just want to see what he does now that the war is over.”  
  
Angela goes quiet after that. “Just remember, your dad’s still grieving,” she says finally.  
  
Chuck doesn’t really believe her.  _Maybe he’s grieving_ , he thinks,  _but ultimately he’s doing fine. It’s a world without Kaiju. He can’t be unhappy._  
  
And watching Herc confirms what Chuck thinks. He looks okay, the same as usual. He does a good job as Marshall. He walks and plays with Max just like usual. He doesn’t skip meals or forgo sleep or do anything that could cause any reason to worry. He’s just the same. The only difference is that once out of his uniform he wears Chuck’s bomber jacket, which Chuck realises his dad had sewn on his eleventh Kaiju kill.  
  
Herc also takes to watching all of their favourite shows and games when not on duty. Chuck and his dad, despite the distance between them, had always shared the same favourite shows, and it makes Chuck happy to see his dad watch their favourite show with Max. Watching TV with his dad becomes a daily activity after that. He laughs and makes annoying comments on certain scenes, talks to his dad even though he knows Herc can’t hear him.   
  
The world’s doing okay. His dad’s doing okay.   
  
This was worth dying for.  
  
**  
  
Angela doesn’t watch the living often. She’s constantly by Chuck’s side but whenever he wants to watch the living she lets go of his hand, tells him to be careful. When Chuck asks why she doesn’t want to watch she tells him, “I’ve done enough watching.”   
  
She’s stayed up in her heaven for ten years. Chuck figures she’s moved on with the living.  
  
He hasn’t.  
  
Other people watch the living too. The one Chuck sees most often is Yancy Becket, who hounds Raleigh constantly. Stacker Pentecost frequently watches Mako, and sometimes even joins Chuck in watching Herc to see if he’s doing his job well.   
  
But to his surprise one day Yancy Becket takes him aside and warns him. “I know the Marshall - well, now, Mr. Pentecost - enough to trust that he can handle this,” he says. “But you, kid, you gotta be careful, alright? These things get tough.”  
  
“I’m not a fucking baby,” Chuck replies coldly. “And my dad’s stronger than you think he is.”  
  
“I’ve been doing this for five years,” Yancy says softly, and his tone makes Chuck flinch. “I know what this is like. And it gets pretty tough.” He pauses for a bit before continuing. “I’m not saying the both of you aren’t strong. All I’m saying is that it can get tough sometimes, that’s all.”  
  
“I appreciate it,” Chuck says, no bite in his tone this time. “But this is different.”  
  
Yancy doesn’t say anything. He just goes after Raleigh, leaving Chuck alone.  
  
**  
  
Herc does more and more things that puts a smile on Chuck’s face. He goes to places where Chuck loved as a kid. The zoo. An amusement park. Places Chuck thought he would never have the chance to visit again. There are amusement parks and zoos in his heaven, manifestations of childhood dreams long buried, but somehow Chuck feels happier walking with his dad, passing different species of animals or watching people scream their lungs out as the roller coaster plunges from its highest peak.  
  
These were things that they never had the chance to do when there was war. But now the war is over, and Herc can finally do what he wants to do.  
  
Herc had sacrificed everything for the war. It’s only fair he gets to live a happy life now.  
  
Chuck is happy.  
  
This was worth dying for.  
  
**  
  
“I don’t have the right to say this,” Raleigh tells Herc after a night out in a bar goes wrong. Herc had gotten into a brawl, and he has already gotten into quite a few recently. “But what you’re doing, it’s not healthy.”

“What’s not healthy?” Herc asks. He’s wearing Chuck’s jacket, Chuck’s grey t-shirt, Chuck’s cap. The ball chain of Chuck’s dog tags dangles slightly out of his jeans pocket. He smells like whiskey and dog fur.

“Everything,” Raleigh says, gesturing at Herc. “The whole ‘immersing yourself in Chuck’ thing. As if you’re trying to be him or something.”

Herc flinches. “That’s not what I’m trying to do,” he says, as if shocked that Raleigh could even think of him doing such a thing.

“Shut the fuck up,  _Raah_ -leigh,” Chuck snaps. “You don’t know anything.”

Obviously they don’t hear it.

“Then if I may ask,” Raleigh says. “What are you trying to do?”

Herc doesn’t say anything. He just shoves his hands into his pockets, fully-healed right hand clutching Chuck’s dog tags, and walks back to the Shatterdome.

Chuck glowers at Raleigh’s forlorn figure.

**

_Dad is happy_ , Chuck tells himself. 

Every time Herc does something the whole family used to do when they were together. 

Every time Herc does something he and Chuck used to do when Chuck was still alive. 

_Dad is happy._

This was worth dying for.

**

In the Shatterdome, in his uniform, Herc is the same. He gives out orders, makes sure everything runs smoothly, does his job as well as Stacker Pentecost would have done.

When he’s on his own, it’s a bit different. He talks to Max as if Max is Chuck. He surrounds himself with things of the past, things Chuck used to do, things Chuck used to like. Rock music blares from his quarters. He feeds Max under the table, despite how he used to scold Chuck for doing it. Out of his uniform he wears Chuck’s jacket, Chuck’s cap, sometimes even Chuck’s shirts. It’s as if when Herc’s not the Marshall, he’s his son’s ghost.

The whole Shatterdome worries about him. They don’t hound him, push him with questions, but they show their concern. Herc always smiles, always says he’s fine, he’s doing well, he’s doing okay. 

Raleigh and Mako and Tendo are the most concerned. Chuck always sees them talking, discussing about the Marshall when he’s not around. He gets angry when he hears them. Why can’t they let the man do what he wants to do? He ignores them.

Dad is happy.

This was worth dying for.

**

One night Chuck sees Herc run into Uncle Scott. It’s a pure coincidence. Herc bristles at the familiar face. Chuck gets angry too, remembering what Scott did, remembers the memories in the drift, remembers Herc’s pain and regret in the drift. Scott raises his eyebrows at Herc’s appearance, snorts.

“Jesus, Herc,” he says. “You look just like the sprog.”

Herc freezes. And so does Chuck.

Raleigh’s words come back to haunt the both of them.

Scott leaves.

**

Herc empties a whole bottle of whiskey. Max whines at his feet as he downs shotglass after shotglass without stopping.

Chuck’s screaming at him.

“This isn’t what I wanted!” he screams, furious. “The war is over, dad! Just let it go already! There’re so many things to do now! Who cares about me?”

His dad just keeps on drinking.

“This isn’t what I wanted!” Chuck repeats, again and again, getting angrier and angrier.

“Calm down, Mr. Hansen,” a voice says softly, and Chuck turns to see Stacker Pentecost watching Herc from the other end of the room. “Hercules is strong. I’m not sure how I would react if I was in his position.”

“But there’s no more war!” Chuck argues. “There’s better things to do than grieve!”

“And if Herc died and you lived,” Stacker interrupts him. “What would you be doing?”

Chuck stiffens. Stacker goes up to him, puts an apologetic hand on his shoulder, and disappears.

It’s a lengthy silence after that, just with the sound of Herc’s laboured breathing, Max’s whining.

“This isn’t what I wanted,” Chuck finally says, and he’s crying. Herc’s crying too, dropped on the ground, his face buried in Max’s fur, body shaking with sobs. Chuck drops to his knees, tries to touch his dad’s hand, but to no avail.

“This isn’t what I wanted,” he sobs. “I’m sorry, dad. I’m sorry.”

This wasn’t worth dying for.

**  
  
“I thought if I died, then the world could be safe. Then everyone could be happy. Dad could be happy.”

Chuck’s voice is mechanical, devoid of emotion. Angela strokes his hair, fingers caressing his forehead, and she says nothing. They’re on the bottom bunk of Chuck’s quarters in heaven - the bed where Herc sleeps down on Earth.

Chuck pushes himself up from Angela’s lap. Looks at her. “Did you hate dad for saving me?”

“Never,” Angela says firmly.

“Why not?”

“You’re our son, Chuck. Parents protect their children, no matter what. If he saved me I wouldn’t have forgiven him for it.”

Chuck looks down at his hands. “That’s what I did.”

“I know.”

Angela pulls him into a hug, and he buries his face into her shoulder.

“I was an arse to dad,” he mumbles. Angela laughs.

“You had a right to be angry,” she says. “But yeah, you were an arse.”

**

Things change.

Herc starts having nightmares. He cries out in his sleep, lashes out, calls out Chuck’s name.

“Stop,” he begs the empty darkness. “Chuck, it wasn’t like that.”

Chuck hates seeing his dad like that, seeing his dad begging him to stop when he isn’t doing anything.

“That’s not me, dad,” he tells him, pleads with him, just like how Herc pleads with the ghosts in his head. “Please wake up.”

Herc doesn’t hear him. He sees ghosts in every corner of his dreams, regrets manifested in the form of nightmares, and all of them look like Chuck.

The only ghost he doesn’t see is Chuck himself.

**

In his uniform, Herc’s still the same. He does his job well just like always.

Out of it he’s a shadow of his former self. He doesn’t say much, goes into long lapses of silence, holes himself up in his quarters, spends most of his time with the dog. 

The whole Shatterdome is worried. Mako and Raleigh show their concern, but they don’t push him. Mako still grieves, Raleigh knows the pain of holes in your soul. They let him take his time. 

Tendo doesn’t ask questions. He just gives Herc coffee and food and offers silent company. The two of them usually spend most of their time sitting together in Herc’s office with Max on Herc’s lap, with either coffee or whiskey on the table, not saying anything. Sometimes Stacker comes to watch them, and if anyone could see it, it would look just like the Marshall’s office when the war was still ongoing - Stacker, Herc, and Tendo, the constants of the Jaeger Program.

Chuck finds himself watching Herc more and more. He calls out to him, despite how futile his efforts are. He tries to make him laugh, he tries to rile him up, he begs him to stop mourning. He knows how useless it is, but he can’t help but try.

Nothing works.

**

Years on earth pass.

One day Chuck finds Max barking, running around in his heaven.  
  
Max had lived the rest of his faithful life by Herc’s side, licking away his tears, ambling alongside his master everywhere he went, sleeping at Herc’s feet whenever he was working. Tendo’s child loved him, and Max kept still every time the child tugged at his ears or squashed his wrinkles together. A good dog, that. Herc had chosen well.

Chuck’s delighted, he can’t stop his tears, and he runs to Max, snatches him up in the tightest hug he can give him, laughs as Max licks his face, says good boy Max, good boy. But then realisation hits him, and he panics, putting the dog on the ground. 

“What about dad?” he asks his mum.

Angela says nothing, but her expression is sad. Chuck already knows the answer anyway.

He looks down at Max, the dog barking excitedly at his feet.

“Dad’s all alone now,” he says, and the tears running down his face aren’t out of happiness anymore. 

Angela goes up to him and hugs him.

“Come on,” she murmurs as he cries into her shoulder. “Your father needs us now.”

She takes his hand, and walks him down the path to the living. Max follows after them.

**

Herc’s on his bunk, crying into Max’s fur, Chuck’s cap placed on top of the still warm body. Cries like he’s got nothing left, because he really, really does have nothing left. He’s all alone in his quarters, and he’s crying and crying, and Chuck has never seen him this broken, this alone.

He can’t take it.

He wants to run. He doesn’t want to see this. But somehow he can’t move. His feet are planted to the ground, his eyes are locked on his dad.

Angela’s arm is tight around him. She doesn’t let go.

They watch Herc Hansen grieve, grieve for a wife he couldn’t save, grieve for a son he gave up everything for and eventually was taken away from, grieve for a dog who stayed with him until the very end. They watch the lonely soldier, the real life Hercules, the one who gave up everything to the war, his life, his heart, his wife, his brother, his son, cry over the only thing he had left, now gone.

Herc gets to his feet, takes Chuck’s bomber jacket lying at the top bunk, and wraps it carefully around the dog. The sight of the dog, wrapped up in his son’s cap, his son’s jacket with the eleven kaiju kills, makes Herc drop to the floor on his knees, press his face into the body on the bed, and cry.

“Go home, boy,” he says finally, his voice ragged. He tries to smile at the dead dog. “Chuck’s waiting for you.”

This time Angela lets go. She releases Chuck’s arm from her grasp, goes up to her husband, watches him with a heartbroken expression.

Chuck’s knees give out and he drops down, in front of Max, buries his face into the dog’s fur, and cries, a mirror to the sight of his father mourning the loss of the dog.

Angela watches both father and son, on the opposite ends of the chasm between life and death, and they both look exactly the same.

**

His mum is with him. His dog is with him.

But this wasn’t worth dying for.

**

“Maybe he could lose his memory,” Chuck mumbles. He looks like a child, eyes red, face stained with tears, hugging Max close to his chest. “Maybe he’ll be happier that way.”

They’re sitting in Chuck’s quarters in heaven, like always. Except this time they’re sitting on the top bunk. 

Chuck doesn’t want to sit on the bottom bunk anymore. Not after what he saw on Earth.

“I don’t think that’s true,” Angela says patiently, Chuck’s behaviour reminding her of his six-year-old self.

“But he’s mourning all the time!” Chuck says. He wipes his eyes angrily. “If he forgets us he’ll be happy again.”

“Chuck,” Angela sighs. “You and your father both mourned for a long time when I died. This is only natural. Besides, do you really want him to not remember you?” At that, her son stiffens, as if trying to imagine Herc not remembering him, his co-pilot, the person he saved instead of his wife, his son.

“It’s better for him,” Chuck sniffs finally. “Whether I’m alive or dead, I keep making him sad somehow.”

Angela smiles, and she shakes her head. “You’re a good son,” she says softly, and pulls him close to a hug. “And I think Herc would rather grieve than forget you.”

**

Things get better.

Chuck starts doing things in Heaven. He learns how to fly a plane, rides Harleys down dusty streets, plays football with other people in different heavens sharing the same football field. He fixes up Striker Eureka, and he, his mum, and Max have meals on top of the Jaeger. He shows his mum the inside of the Jaeger, shows her the Conn-Podd, tells her about piloting Jaegers. One of his secret wishes when he was on Earth was that he could communicate with Striker, for the Jaeger to be able to move without piloting, and it’s fulfilled one day when she comes to life, pistons pushing up and down as she turns, lifts up a giant arm, waves. Angela falls in love with her.

His mum introduces him to the friends she has in heaven. Some of them are the ones she had when she was alive, who died just like her when Scissure attacked the city. He meets Luna Pentecost, Stacker’s sister, and Tamsin Sevier, Stacker’s co-pilot. Apparently they became friends, bonding when Luna cheered on Stacker and Tamsin while Angela watched over her two boys. Tamsin came after once she died, and the three of them became friends ever since. Luna calls Chuck a mouthy little brat, but the both of them like him.

Chuck talks to the other Jaeger Pilots. He remakes friends with the Wei Tang triplets and the Kaidonovskys, who curiously wonder why he doesn’t mouth off as much as he used to. He laughs when they ask him why he isn’t such a little brat anymore, and makes a snide comment for their sake. It earns him a brutal cuff on the neck by Aleksis, and Angela laughs her head off watching. Chuck also makes friends with Jaeger Pilots he never got the chance to meet - the pilots of Romeo Blue, Tacit Ronin, Nova Hyperion. Sometimes all the Jaeger Pilots gather together at a huge table surrounded by their Jaegers and swap tales about Kaiju kills.

But mostly he spends his time with his mum, walking down the field they reunited in with Max at their heels. Sometimes they even go in Striker, the three of them sitting on the giant Jaeger’s hull as it tramples on the grass. Chuck tells his mum everything he did on Earth, even if she does know everything. In return she tells him about everything she did in heaven before he came, as well as tales of his dad and her when they were younger, back before they were married.

“When I first met Herc it was raining,” she tells him one day as they walk through the field. “And when you were born it was raining too. Herc says it’s a coincidence, but maybe it means something.” She laughs.

Chuck remembers the weather that greeted him when he was running, the first day he came to his heaven. It was dark and cloudy, almost about to rain. He wonders whether it was just a coincidence as well.

**

Things get better.

Tendo and Allison find Herc crying over the dog, and they comfort him. Tendo even stays with him throughout the entire night. The day after, Herc gives the dog a simple funeral, burying Max with Chuck’s cap. Tendo, Allison, Raleigh and Mako attend, and after that, the five of them sit together and talk through the night, comforting each other.

Herc takes a two week break after that. He goes back to Australia. While he’s there he contacts Tendo to make sure Tendo runs the show smoothly while he’s gone. The others are relieved, because the frequent calls means that he’s still alive and well.

When Herc comes back, Tendo asks him, “How are you?” 

Herc says, “I’m okay.” And this time it doesn’t sound like a lie.

**

Things get better.

Herc’s no ghost of his former self anymore. He’s still quieter than he used to be, and the sadness in his eyes never goes away, but he’s better. He cracks jokes with Tendo sometimes, babysits Tendo and Allison’s kid, swaps tales of Manila with Raleigh, buys a puppy for Mako.

He’s still the Marshall, and he’s still the same when in uniform.  
  
Only this time, he’s not Chuck’s ghost out of it, nor is he his own ghost.

He’s just Herc.

**

Things get better.

Chuck stops watching.

**

Things get better.

**

Dark clouds loom over the skies of Angela’s heaven. Chuck’s sitting on the porch, playing with Max, watching a fighter jet pass by.

Angela looks out from the window, and smiles.

She sends Chuck out to the field.

**

It starts raining when Chuck walks across the field, and he’s drenched. He doesn’t mind though. He’s always liked the refreshing cold of summer rain, the smell of the earth when the rain hits the ground. Max whines unhappily as his fur gets soaked.

“You can go back if you want,” Chuck says. Max barks in disapproval, following his master.

The rain gets heavier, and Chuck starts running.

He runs as fast as he can, laughing as the rain soaks him. Droplets of water fly off his hair as he shakes his head, trying to see where he’s going.

The sight that greets him makes him laugh, laugh as hard as he can, and he screams out a word, a name in the air.

**

Black clouds billow over the skies, rain pours heavily on the field, and Herc is running.

He doesn’t know where he’s going. Doesn’t know why he’s running. Doesn’t even know he ended up here. 

All he knows is that he’s running, and he just keeps going.

The sky is dark, the rain is heavy, and he’s drenched to the bone, but he doesn’t mind. He loves it, actually.

He first met Angela in the rain. He first met Chuck when it was raining. The weather suits him. 

There’s an anticipation building up in his chest, he wants to laugh but his chest is so tight, and he doesn’t know why.

A flurry of barking echoes through the wind, and a familiar voice is shouting. And Herc realises where he is, why he’s here, where he’s running to.

Herc lets out the laugh from his throat, blinks away his tears, and picks up the pace.

He’s almost home.

**Author's Note:**

> This has bugged me for years but I wrote this fic before I started drinking hard liquor. Now that I know better, if Herc drank a whole bottle of whiskey on his own without stopping he'd definitely pass out from alcohol poisoning. Let's pretend I meant a small(er) bottle. Also he definitely would not be doing shots lmao he'd be guzzling that whole bottle. 2013 me knew nothing.


End file.
